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He almost shook his head confused by thoughts he never imagined he would have of her. Where had they come from and why was he wasting time on this? He needed to focus on what was important.
She is important.
The thought startled him, and he grew annoyed with himself. She needed to know he was in command or was it he who needed to remind himself?
“Not much longer,” he ordered, his tongue sharper than he intended.
“As you say.”
The delight in her voice and gentle smile on her face had a smile of his own rushing to the surface, but he quashed it before it got the chance to show. All too often lately, he found that she forced a smile from him, not that he let it surface. Was he that pleased with her that she made him smile?
Bewitched.
She had to have bewitched him. Why else would he feel like this? Why else would she not leave his thoughts? Why else did he want her forever by his side? He shook his head at the maddening thoughts that would not leave him alone. He was not some young lad allowing himself to be befuddled by a woman, let alone a witch. He commanded his clan, and he commanded her, and he would have it no other way.
She suddenly left his side and walked a short distance away to ease herself down to look at something in the snow.
“What have you found?” he asked as he walked over to her.
“A single footprint,” she said, puzzled.
Varrick joined her, crouching down to have a look. It was as she said, a single footprint and distinct.
Fia shook her head. “It is not very large, yet it is too large to belong to a child and too small to belong to either of the men the hell hounds got.”
Varrick looked as puzzled as his wife was. “And how could there be only one?”
“It is strange, and what is even stranger is that the footprint does not sink all the way down into the snow but sits on top of it. How does one leave such a print without sinking into the snow?”
Varrick grabbed his wife’s arm to pull her up as he stood. “Something is not right here.”
“I agree. All the signs point to something strange going on in this area.”
“Snow,” Varrick said as small flakes began to drop and accumulate on Fia’s hood. “We seek the shelter now.”
Fia did not argue as her husband tucked her close to hurry her along.
It was a short walk, yet they were both covered with more than a dusting of snow when they reached the shelter, leaving Varrick concerned that it could prove to be a heavy snowfall or possible snowstorm. If so, he would see they returned home sooner than planned.
“Keep your cloak on until I stoke the fire and have it going strong,” Varrick said and got busy doing just that after shutting the door.
Fia pulled the bench closer to the hearth, ready to let its heat soak into her as soon as the flames began to roar. She watched the snow that had covered her husband’s dark hair like a cap melt away as the fire’s heat began to spread. She liked watching him do the simple task, liked the way his arms bulged with strength as he added log after log or the way his shoulders stretched and the tightness of his thighs as he hunched down in front of the hearth. He was a man of great strength and even greater courage, and with a tenderness to him that he let no one see or perhaps he did not know he possessed it. But it showed in the way he tended to the fire, to see that she got warm, or the way he would pull her hood up on her head or remind her to keep her cloak closed against the cold, and even more so, the way he would take hold of her hand. And then there were his kisses.
Goodness, she sounded just as her mum had when she had spoken about Fia’s da. You could hear the love she had for him. Was that how she sounded now… in love with her husband? How had that happened?
Fate.
He turned his head and their eyes caught and held, neither saying a word and yet something exchanged between them, something neither of them could deny.
Varrick stood. “I need to get more logs.”
“I will get some freshly fallen snow and fix us a hot brew,” Fia said, standing as well.
Neither of them moved.
“Earlier, when a thought came to you, you did not tell me all of it. What did you not tell me?” he asked, suddenly needing to know.
Fia saw no reason not to be honest with him. “I recalled something my grandmother had told me about why my mum and da were able to hear each other in their minds.”
